1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to air conditioning systems, and more particularly to a compressor assisted cooling-heating tube arrangement for generating a coaxial flow of hot gas and cool gas and segregating the hot gas from the cool gas for particular use thereof.
2. Prior Art
Air conditioning systems, particularly those used in automobiles, use an expensive, heavy, horsepower consuming mechanism to cool the interiors of these automobiles. Those systems weigh on the order of 100 to 150 pounds. They require about 9 to 15 horsepower to run and, they provide only cool air, not hot air. The current air conditioning systems use a vapor compression, a condenser unit, several expansion valves or capillary tubes, an evaporator, and a number of high pressure hoses. The pressure in the current systems often exceed 300 pounds per square inch and are prone to leakage due to work seals or deteriorated hoses.
Arrangements, other than vapor compression-refrigeration cycles, have been devised, to provide warm or cool air on demand. One such arrangement is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,952,281 to Ranque, wherein a fluid under pressure is admitted in a vortex fashion into a tubular member, the fluid, preferably a gas such as air, forming two coaxial sheets each having a gyratory motion, and reacting upon one another so as to produce, under the action of centrifugal force, the compression of the outer sheet by the inner sheet which expands, this compression absorbing a certain amount of work, which is evidenced by a rise in temperature of the compressed (outer) sheet of fluid at the expense of the inner sheet of fluid, which is cooled. Ranque devised a rotor to provide initial compression which supplied the fluid to stationary blades which were mounted on an annular body, and which created the vortex. This only provides limited amounts of air and is inefficient due primarily to boundary layer dissipations and the associated stresses between streamlines of gas molecules at their resepctive radial positions and velocities within the tubular member. In traversing the distance of the vortex tube, great loss in energy occurs due to boundary layer drag which performs an irreversible amount of work on the flowing gas molecules and causes the inner stream of gas molecules to perform work on one another via an attempt at momentum conversion.
Another vortex tube cooling arrangement is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 2,920,457 to Bartlette, wherein motor driven centrifugal compressor is connected through a conduit, to an inlet of a vortex tube. The vortex tube has a finned hot end, and a cool end which is connected to an evaporator, which returns the fluid via a conduit, to the compressor unit. A pump or fan is shown for moving air across the evaporator. This unit is inefficient and bulky, and would not provide both the hot and cold air as readily as the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,240,261 to Inglis shows a vortex tube air conditioning device having control means thereon for adjusting the temperature of the outlet air from the unit. This device is useful in personal size applications however, such as welder's helmets or the like. The design is not capable of producing quantities of air which would be useful for cooling something on the order of an automobile.
A vortex tube, shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,486,643, is designed to provide hot or cold air for automobiles, but only to heat or cool specific small items such as an automatic choke or an engine, not the whole interior of a car.
A refrigeration and heating system for automobiles is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,302,949, which utilizes a vortex tube for dividing a gaseous fluid into a hot stream and a cold stream. Unfortunately, the device uses a number of pumps, pressurized heat exchangers, coils and regulating valves, which assembly approaches the complexity of current vapor compression refrigeration cycle devices presently used in the automotive field today.
It is an object of this invention to provide a gas treating system wherein kinetic energy is imparted to a gas stream and a cool gas product stream and a hot gas product stream are produced.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an air conditioning system, particularly for automobiles or the like, costing only a fraction of presently available air conditioning units.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an air conditioning system capable of providing heat immediately, instead of having to wait for a prime mover to be energized, thus providing defrosting and warming capabilities upon demand.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide an air conditioning system which weighs only a fraction of present systems and uses only a fraction of the horsepower required on present day air conditioning systems used in automobiles today.